They had seen, but only to hate, both, Father and Son, the thoughts of many hearts were already revealed, the secrets of men judged (morally), before the great day when God would judge them by Jesus Christ. The presence of the Lord is always the judgment of the flesh. Even the application of the commandment left nothing living but sin. The commandment, being come, sin revived, but I died.
The presence of the Holy Ghost, the great subject of this chapter, would bring a demonstration to the world which revealed its true relations, to God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In none of these chapters does the Lord speak of the church, or of the unity of the body. When unity (oneness) is spoken of, it is either in Him (but this is individual, “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”), or the result of the fellowship with the Father and the Son, “that they may be one in Us,” the powerful source of a testimony that persuaded men, “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” It was practical in the deepest way, a realization of the highest truth and privileges, but not the unity of the body. We are baptized by the Holy Ghost into one body (1 Cor. 12:1313For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)); but this blessed truth is not the subject of John’s testimony. The Holy Ghost is not sent to the world, but to the disciples, but being come, He brings a demonstration of certain things to it.
In this chapter the Lord completes His instructions to the disciples. They begin with the announcement, that He was about to leave the world and go to the Father (John 13), and end with the declaration, “I have overcome the world.” In John 14, He was Himself both the Way to, and Revealer of the Father. In John 15, He is the true Vine on earth, His Father the Husbandman who purged the branches. John 16 gives us the ministry of the Holy Ghost, who would lead them into the knowledge of all the glory of the Lord, when no longer on earth, but with the Father. The Holy Ghost would glorify Him thus — the Father glorified Him in Himself.
His journey through this world was ended. His coming into it had been celebrated gloriously, but that was from above. “Jerusalem that now is,” “was troubled,” “all Jerusalem,” “Thy city Jerusalem.” “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!”
It was not to priests and Levites, but to shepherds watching their flocks, that in the silence of the night (how brightly the stars must have shone that night!) the angel of Jehovah appeared, “The glory of the Lord shone round them; a multitude of the heavenly host was with the angel; good tidings of joy to all the people,” was the angel’s announcement; the heavenly host went farther, good pleasure in men.
Again, when He entered on His public ministry — the revelation of the Father — not heavenly hosts, but divine Persons were there. The Father’s voice and Holy Ghost’s presence told out the glory of His Person. What drew forth angels praise was the sign in the manger of Bethlehem; what moved the Father’s delight was the Son’s association with sinful men when telling out their sins to God, grace deep in its root as that revealed when He took their place upon the cross.
And here we have His last words, ere He left the world He had overcome, spoken in the devotedness of a love in which, while thinking of their sorrows, He had absolutely conquered His own. Never had such a path been discovered before, and never a man to walk in it, had there been one, until Jesus of Nazareth was there: His footsteps alone have made it, and, there is but that one in “the waste”!
And now the end is come, rivaling the beginning in all moral beauty and greatness. Viewed from man’s side, rejection and defeat alone seem to mark His path, which becomes increasingly solitary as He nears the goal. His testimony is refused; the wrath of His adversaries increases; the power of the enemy prevails; His sorrowing cry, “Let this cup pass from Me,” apparently unheeded; “Where was His God?” the taunting expression or thought of His adversaries!
And where was Jesus at this moment? For Him the hour would soon be past. I do not know that it could be said then, “Joy dwells upon His brow,” but at least it was an unclouded one; the light of victory and of glory was within. While the wicked were gathering against the soul of the righteous One, He was quietly telling of a conquered world; “I have overcome the world”; and of the judgment of its prince (the dragon shalt Thou trample under feet); and of glory boundless as the creation of God, (He will have it as a gift from His Father). So, when the great storm arose, and the waves beat into the ship, He was asleep on a pillow in the stern — awakened by the fearful ones, whose terror only increased when He rebuked the winds, and said to the sea, “Be silent,” and there was a great calm. And so too, when Satan offered Him the kingdoms and their glory, He did not need to change His ground, or lift up His voice in the wilderness, He simply rebukes him, “Get thee behind Me,” and, “It is written”; then the accuser was silent, left Him, and angels came and ministered unto Him.
Verse 14. “He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” The Holy Ghost would thus glorify Him who, for the Father’s glory, and for man’s sake, had emptied Himself. When He spoke of the desire of His own heart, that was to be with the Father in the glory and the love He had with Him before the world itself existed. What could the world do to such an One? (Even one of His own martyrs, when men came to lead Him to death, quietly remarked, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”) Its last act of iniquity, perfected in hatred, only afforded occasion for the accomplishment of His own great, work of love, whose depth no tongue can tell.
But what a period of wondrous privilege this chapter unfolds! The Holy Spirit present to reveal the glories of Christ while He sits upon the Father’s throne, and the saints participation in His sufferings in testimony in the world. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also” (John 15:19-2019If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. (John 15:19‑20)). In the beginning, He had not spoken to them of the sufferings of which He forewarns them in the commencement of the chapter, which would in fact be the fellowship of His own sufferings from the hand of man, for He had been amongst them, the Shepherd of His people, and had kept them in the Father’s name.
“When I sent, you without purse and scrip and shoes,” He says in Luke 22, “lacked ye anything? But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” They are thrown, as man would say, upon their own resources, in reality upon His. Faith and prayer alone can wield the sword that Jesus speaks of. “Lord, here are two swords,” they say; “It is enough,” He replies; they understand nothing, neither His word nor the scriptures; presently He would make a place for both in their opened understandings, and then would their hearts burn (Luke 24). How precious is the knowledge of Jesus! Here sorrow fills their hearts when He speaks of going to the Father, but His ways, which they had not known, He is unfolding here; for what is the heart of man, when unable to penetrate the clouded mystery of divine ways, to which, as yet, he has no clue?
These He commences to unfold by saying, “It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. How blessedly these instructions blend and harmonize; the purse and the sword, the saints responsibility; the Advocate on high; and the Spirit of power down here! Already He had told them He would beg the Father, and He would give them another Comforter. The Father would send Him in Jesus’ name. Note, all the Persons in the Godhead are before us in this blessed passage, one in their love to redeemed sinners. The Son asks; and the Father sends in His name, and the Spirit comes to bring to remembrance what Jesus said, as well as to teach them all things. Jesus Himself is the Center here; compare with Matthew 3, where the Father and the Holy Ghost are occupied with the Son.
In John15, Jesus sends from the Father. In the place He had taken amongst men, He had served as the sent One, but having reached the glory He had with the Father, His own glory, He now sends the Holy Ghost, the Witness of His glory on high with the Father. The sent One is become the Sender, humiliation is exchanged for glory, the place is changed, but not the Person.
To know Him, whether in humiliation or in glory, the presence and power of the Holy Ghost are indispensable. Who but He can take of the things of Jesus, and show them unto us?
(1). The first effect of His presence, as given in these chapters (14-15) would be the knowledge of their oneness with Him who is in the Father;
(2). then their divine Teacher would bring to remembrance what Jesus had said;
But He must leave them, in order to obtain for them this inestimable blessing. Already the winds and waves were rising, they were looking at them rather than at Him. “If ye loved me,” He says, “ye would rejoice that I go to the Father, for My Father is greater than I.” But fear and trouble were in their hearts, while thoughts of rest for them, when He should have brought them to His Father’s house, and the joy and glory of being with the Father, were filling His. And here He says, “Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.”
Thus, on the very eve of the accomplishment of redemption work, of the glorification of Jesus, and of the coming of the Holy Ghost, their hearts were filled with trouble, fear, and sorrow; none of them had heart to say, “Whither goest Thou?” Thus, too, it was just before another day of redemption, the darkest hour preceded the brightest, “the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them,” and “they were sore afraid”; but a little after, the cloudy pillar went from before their face, and came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. It was only a dark cloud to the Egyptians, while it sent forth the light of salvation to Israel; it was in truth the light of the glory, which had made the cloud its dwelling-place.
(4). But fourthly, when He is come, He will bring demonstration to the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, the effect of His presence and testimony in relation to the world. “Of sin, because they believe not on Me.” His Person was the test now. He had been amongst them, and they had not received Him, and the world knew Him not. Had they believed on Him, their sins would have been forgiven, but the Holy Ghost present replaces, so to speak, a rejected Lord, and is the demonstration of that rejection, and therefore of this world’s sin. His presence in grace was the final test, and left them without excuse for their sin; similarly the voice from the law stopped every mouth, leaving the whole world without excuse in its sin, under judgment to God.
Verse 10. “Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more.” Of whom could it be said, “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows,” but of Him whose throne was for ever and ever, administered in righteousness? He had preached righteousness in the great congregation, He had not hidden God’s righteousness within His heart, and presently it would be fully revealed in the mighty work of the cross, and then the Glorifier of the Father would sit upon that Father’s throne, while waiting for His own, still glorifying Him even in receiving from His hand that glory which He had with Him before the world was.
How righteousness and glory, love and joy, commingle here! God blessing for ever One fairer than the children of men (His face had been marred more than any man); God anointing Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows! The Spirit’s presence on earth would be the demonstration of a righteousness divine and infinite before the Father, for Jesus must be with the Father to send Him. Yet at this moment they were “gathering themselves together against the soul, of the [only] righteous [One], to condemn the innocent blood.”
Verse 11. “Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” He who sends the Holy Ghost from the Father ascended after death. He that breaks the bonds of death, is necessarily the Destroyer of him that had the power of death. He presented Himself to John afterwards as the Living One who had become dead, but was living to the ages of ages, in possession of the keys of death and of hades. Blessed, almighty Conqueror! He had already given the keys of the kingdom of heaven to one of His servants. For those like-minded with Himself, the Holy and the True, He told His servant John, He had yet another key, with which when He had opened, none could shut (Rev. 3). It is easy to see that the Spirit’s presence involved the judgment of Satan. In John 12 He had pronounced the judgment of this world.
They could not, however, bear the many things He had to say to them. But the Spirit would come, and then He speaks of a fifth operation of the Spirit. (5). He would show them things to come; besides this (6). He would guide into all the truth. (7). In the seventh, He glorifies Jesus, taking of the things that are His, all things that the Father has being His, and shows them to the disciples. What a wondrous place of blessing! The Holy Ghost present, ministering to the opened understanding of the disciples the infinite glories of the Son, and in doing so, revealing His oneness with the Father in the possession of all things “that He has.”
And how blessed to find, in another place, the Holy Spirit’s unfoldings of the counsels of the Father in connection with these boundless glories, the all things which the Son possesses with Himself; the purpose being to invest the Son when risen as Man, the Conqueror of sin, Satan, and the world, with the headship over these all things to the church His body, putting all things under His feet (Eph. 1). Neither the Spirit nor the Son could act in these communications apart from the Father. What the Son possesses with or from the Father, the Spirit unfolds, bearing testimony to Jesus, who is the Center here again of all these thoughts.
As the Lord went on with these glorious communications, did the disciples continue to look at the rising winds and waves, trouble, fear and sorrow filling their weary hearts? I think not, for when He adds the word about the little while, and seeing Him again, their tongues are at length loosened. They confess to each other their ignorance of the meaning of the “little while”; the Lord anticipates their request, and explains.
“In that day” refers to this period, while He is with the Father, and the Holy Ghost here. The first mentioned blessing of that day was in John 14:2020At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:20). They would know that He was in the Father, and they in Him; here (vs. 23) He tells them, that “in that day” whatsoever they asked in His name the Father would give them. They had never asked in that name yet; if they did ask in Christ’s name they should receive, and their joy would be full. The fullness of that joy would not be found so much, I think, in the value of what was given, as in the Father’s response to requests in Jesus’ name.
How great is such joy, and how little known! In that day (of the Spirit’s presence), the saints praying in the Holy Ghost would ask the Father in Jesus’ name; this belongs distinctively to Christian position, the presence and energy of the Holy Ghost its power. So in Ephesians 1, we have access to the Father through Christ by the Spirit. In all true worship, service, and conflict, we are really in communion with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
In verse 26, “that day” is mentioned for the third time, the blessing here is that the Father Himself loved them. “At that day ye shall ask in My name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.” His heart was towards them, so that in this sense He needed not Jesus intercession to draw forth His love towards them. “I say not that I will pray the Father,” explains verse 23, “Ye shall ask Me nothing.”
Now we come to His last word to the disciples. He had come from, and was now returning to the Father; but as yet they were incapable of understanding what that meant. That He was come from God, they could understand; but they needed the Holy Ghost to enable them to understand the Lord’s teaching about the Father. At the end of John 14, He told them of the prince of this world coming and having nothing in Him. Here, that though tribulation would be their portion, in passing through it, yet it was a world overcome by man in His own Person, through which they had to pass.
“Be of good courage, I have overcome the world.” They were not to be troubled, fearful, or offended, they were to “be of good courage,” and their sorrow was to give place to joy. The great thing here is that the prince of this world is judged, and the world itself overcome — such was the scene they were to pass through. What comfort and encouragement for them and us!
What mighty themes the Spirit has brought before us in these chapters! The sufferings, glories and victories of the Savior; the revelation of the Father; the presence of the Holy Ghost; the world overcome by One found as a Man; and its ruler judged! In after days, when love had grown cold, and the church had fallen, He sent by His servant John (the book of Revelation), with notes of warning, a word of encouragement to all the faithful, setting them upon His own, the overcomer’s path. The least amongst them should sit upon His throne, even as He had overcome, and sat down upon His Father’s throne (Rev. 3:2121To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)).